


















































































































REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE 


IN THE 



# 


By E. J. HULING, 

Late Acting Assistant Paymaster, United States Navy. 


PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 


Sentinel Print, Saratoga Springs, N. Y. 
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PRELIMINARY WORDS. 


The following “Reminiscences” of fourteen months spent in a 
gunboat in the Mississippi squadron were compiled some years 
since, in the intervals of daily newspaper work, from letters writ¬ 
ten to members of my family. Since their preparation and first 
publication all those letters as well as my official papers and 
many relics have been burned, and in revising them for publica¬ 
tion, to meet a demand from my family and friends for copies, I 
^jiave had to depend entirely upon memory.. 

As a matter of record I give the following list and brief sketch 
of the officers of the United States Steamer Huntress, (known 
on the naval records as gunboat No. 58 of the Mississippi squad¬ 
ron, ) which formed my home during my term of service : 

The Huntress was a flat bottomed, stern wheel boat, built for 
the Cumberland river trade, and drew, when strengthened up for 
^service with all her armament on board, some thirty inches of 
I water. It was purchased at Cincinnati and fitted out in haste 
[there after the disaster to the Red river expedition in the winter 
‘and spring of 1864. 

Acting Master John S. Dennis, an old whaleship captain, a 
native of Pennsylvania, who had run away and went to sea from 
New Bedford, rising from cabin boy to captain, was in command 
until his death in the winter of 1865. 

Acting Master Henry E. Bartlett, of Burlington, Iowa, was 
sent to take command after the death of Captain Dennis, 

Acting Ensign James M. Flint, of Lexington, Missouri, was 




IV 


executive officer. He entered the service as a landsman and 
having a good education and ability to command rose to his 
position rapidly, 

Acting Ensign Frank Middleton was a sailor, a native of Syr¬ 
acuse in this state. He had just returned from a cruise and 
landed in Maine when the war broke out. Enlisting as a soldier 
he was found in the search for sailors in the ranks of the army 
of the Potomac, and sent west with an acting commission. 

Acting Masters Mates Henry Z. Alphin, Benjamin F. Brum- 
back and James R. Thomas, were all Kentuckians, and were de¬ 
tailed from the army of the Cumberland to serve in the navy. 

Acting Assistant Surgeon Henry S. DeFord was from Easton, 
Pennsylvania. 


Acting Assistant Paymaster Edmund J. Huling was appointed 
from New York. 


The Engineers were John Cullen, acting chief, with Isaac 
Ackley and Johnson Crawford, assistants. They were all Ohio 
river men, brought from Cincinnati, although Crawford was 
born in the east. 

The Mississippi Pilots who started out with the Huntress 
from Mound City in June, 1864, were Edward L. Fulkerson of 
St. Louis, and James Hanlan of Cincinnati. In 1865 Mr. 
Fulkerson was transferred to another boat and Edward Hyner 
was sent in his place. 

M. M. Berry of Saratoga Springs was for a time in service a$ 
clerk of Lieutenant Commander John G. Mitchell, who com¬ 
manded the division from Columbus, Kentucky, to Memphis,' 
and made his headquarters on the Huntress. 

Ferdinand Height of Saratoga Springs was paymaster’s stew¬ 
ard on board the Huntress. 

E. J. Huling. 

Saratoga Springs, May, 1881. 


REMINISCENCES 

OF 

Gunboat Life on the Mississippi. 


CHAPTER I. 


How I went, and where I entered the Service.—Mound 
City and Cairo, Illinois;—The rise and progress 
of the Squadron .— The Ram Fleet .— The Com- 
manders of the Mississippi Squadron . 







pN the seventh day of June, 1864 (having 
previously been appointed an acting as- 
<0 sistant paymaster, United States navy), 
I received an order directing me to re¬ 
port to Rear Admiral D. D. Porter, 
commanding the Mississippi squadron, at Cairo, Illi¬ 
nois, without delay. In a few hours I was on my way % 
to the metropolis, where a short time sufficed to sup- 


1 






2 


REMINISCENCES 


ply a uniform and other articles of outfit supposed to 
be needed, and the evening of the next day after leav¬ 
ing home found me in the cars flying through New 
Jersey to Philadelphia, and so on toward Cairo. Mis¬ 
sing a connection at Chicago, I was forced to remain 
there one day, which I spent in viewing that wonderful 
metropolis of the west, and on Saturday evening, the 
eleventh of the month, T landed in Cairo from the 
Illinois Central railroad cars, to find that Admiral 
Porter’s headquarters were at Mound City, six miles 
up the Ohio river. A naval tug boat was just leaving 
the wharf at Cairo, and my uniform assured me a 
passage to Mound City thereon; so without delay I 
continued my journey. 

Mound City I found a small straggling village, 
mostly dependent upon the naval station for its sup¬ 
port. Started by an association of capitalists as a 
rival of Cairo, large sums of money had been spent to 
make it a business center. A large brick storehouse 
had been built, and there was a marine railway, to 
hoist boats out of the river for repairs, etc.; but the 
speculation had been a failure until the breaking out 
of the rebellion. Cairo was a strategic point, neces¬ 
sary for the government to hold, and when the Missis¬ 
sippi squadron was organized it was found necessary 
to lease the marine railway at Mound City for the use 
of the squadron, and soon the large storehouse of the 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


3 


company was taken for a military hospital. It was 
not a very inviting looking place at any time. A high 
levee had been built directly in front of the town, but 
it did not extend far enough to keep the water from 
setting back into the streets when the Ohio was at its 
highest stages, and in April, 1865, all the inhabitants 
had to keep boats for navigating the streets, except 
where planks were laid on the tops of boxes and bar¬ 
rels. Over one hundred boats were counted at one 
time near the gate of the navy yard, having been used 
by the workmen to reach their work. In returning 
from church one Sunday in July, 1865, I overheard a 
discussion among a group of navy engineers as to the 
future of the citizens of the place. It was conceded 
that hell would be no punishment, after residing any 
length of time in Mound City, and therefore that the 
wicked of the place would be remanded back, as the 
only adequate penalty of their offenses. 

Cairo, situated at the confluence of the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers, stood for the portrait of “ Eden,” in 
Dickens’s novel of “ Martin Chuzzlewit.” Its situa¬ 
tion is one where business will naturally center, but 
millions of dollars have been spent in filling it up so 
as to be habitable. It is the southern terminus of the 
Illinois Central railroad, and all steamboats stop there 
to put off and take on freight and passengers. The 
war was a great benefit to the place, its situation 


4 


REMINISCENCES 


requiring its occupation by the union forces. Ohio 
levee, its principal street, contained several good busi¬ 
ness houses, and much was being done to improve the 
place during the time I knew it. Two steam pumps 
of large size were kept at work during the high water 
in the spring of 1865, to pump out the water that set 
back into the town from the two rivers, and a con¬ 
struction train was bringing in sand to fill it up. If 
the proprietors of the place continue to lay out their 
money liberally in improvements for a few years longer, 
they may secure its future prosperity. 

A brief account of the commencement and growth 
of the Mississippi squadron may be interesting in this 
connection. Among the first points of interest which 
attracted attention at the opening of the rebellion was 
the Mississippi river. The rebels closed it against the 
navigation of the west, hoping thereby to detach the 
people of that section from the union. Captain 
Rodgers, of the navy, was early sent to take meas¬ 
ures for organizing a flotilla, but the war department 
claimed to control all matters on inland rivers upon 
whose lines the armies would be continually operating, 
and so for several months the Mississippi squadron, 
although the vessels were commanded by naval offi¬ 
cers, was subordinate to the army, and Captain Rodg¬ 
ers and his successor, Captain A. H. Foote, who 
assisted in the capture of Forts Henry, Donelson, 



OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


5 


Island Number Ten, Fort Pillow and Memphis, were 
both subject to the orders of the commandant of the 
army. General Fremont, while in command of the 
western department, had much to do with the building 
and equipment of several of the first vessels of the 
squadron. The iron clads Essex, Benton, Baron de 
Kalb, and others that distinguished themselves in the 
attack above noticed, were superintended by army and 
naval officers together. They were of the class after¬ 
ward denominated “ turtles,” a very appropriate name, 
considering their shape and speed. They had a flat 
bottomed hull, suitable for the navigation of the Mis¬ 
sissippi, with all above the water line covered with 
very heavy plates of iron, put on over a thick planking, 
with a slant about equal to what is known as the 
French roof of a house. The pilot house was the only 
projection, besides the smoke stacks, above the nearly 
flat roof, and there were two low stories under the roof, 
furnishing very close and uncomfortable quarters for 
the officers and crew. The guns on these decks were 
to be fired through port holes, covered with heavy iron 
doors. Afterward, that style of vessels being found 
very slow and difficult to handle in the swift current 
of the Mississippi, as well as uncomfortable for officers 
and crew, the plan of taking ordinary river boats and 
altering them over was adopted. The squadron in 
time came to number some seventy or eighty vessels, 


6 


REMINISCENCES 


distributed on the Mississippi and its tributaries, from 
St. Louis to below the Red river. The passenger 
boats on the Mississippi are built on a plan entirely 
different from those on the eastern rivers, being pro¬ 
pelled by high pressure engines occupying, with the 
boilers, a large part of the main deck. This part of 
the vessel, when altered for a gunboat, was protected 
by heavy planking, and then covered with a single 
sheet of extra thick boiler plate iron, sufficient to pro¬ 
tect against musketry. This class of vessels was nick¬ 
named “ tin clads.” The main deck was occupied by 
the crew, who messed on deck and slept in hammocks 
slung from hooks in the deck timbers above. The 
magazine and store rooms, or lockers, as they were 
called, were in the hold, nearly below the water line. 
The officers’ quarters were on the upper deck, used 
for passengers before the boat was purchased for the 
navy. The protection for these quarters was. very 
slight, being nothing more than about half an inch of 
wood. A gallery or guard surrounded the officers’ 
quarters, upon which doors opened from the state¬ 
rooms, and forward of them was what was known in 
the squadron as the quarter deck, where the officer of 
the watch was stationed. This quarter deck was sur¬ 
rounded by a kind of box covered with canvass about 
breast high, called the hammock nettings, in which all 
the sailors’ hammocks were stored during the day. 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


7 


Above the officers’ quarters was the pilot house, 
sheathed with thick planking and covered with boiler 
iron. In action all the officers and crew were stationed 
below, excepting the pilots and the commander, with 
a single aid, who were in the pilot house. The ma¬ 
jority of the “tin clads” were propelled by wheels at 
the stem, entirely exposed, and looking quite cumber¬ 
some. While the iron clads carried heavy rifled guns, 
the u tin clads” first sent out were mostly armed with 
two light rilled guns forward and twelve or twenty-four 
pound brass howitzers on the sides. The only effect¬ 
ive guns were really the two bow guns, which would 
send shells from one to two miles, while the howitzers, 
making more noise and jar on board the boat, would 
send their shells but a short distance, comparatively. 
The “New Era,” which took part in the defense of 
Fort Pillow, when attacked by Forrest, had very lit¬ 
tle ammunition, except for her howitzers, and most of 
her shells fell short, or did little execution. Had she 
been armed with the same kind of guns that the boat 
I served upon carried (thirty pound rifled Parrots, 
sending shells three miles), she could have aided ma¬ 
terially in defending that fort, and perhaps have pre¬ 
vented the capture. 

When the Mississippi squadron was reorganized 
under the full control of the navy, a naval brigade was 
arranged by Colonel Ellet, commissioned by the sec- 


8 


REMINISCENCES 


retary of war, which operated during the opening of 
the river, the boats being strengthened forward to use 
as rams. These rams took part in the capture of 
Memphis, and also in the first attack on Vicksburg; 
but after the death of the two Colonels Ellet (father 
and son), although retained in the service, they did 
very little duty. Colonel Ellet, the projector, alone 
could make them efficient. 

The Mississippi squadron, organized as I have men¬ 
tioned, performed much service while under command 
of Captain A. H. Foote, but the wound he received 
in the attack on Fort Henry compelled his retirement 
after the capture of Memphis, in June, 1862, and very 
little service was afterward done by the squadron until 
Rear Admiral David D. Porter was ordered to its 
command, with Captain A. M. Pennock as fleet cap¬ 
tain. Admiral Porter, with his flag ship, the “ Black 
Hawk,” took part in the siege and capture of Vicks¬ 
burg, in 1863, and he also went up the Red river with 
General Banks, in the spring of 1864. The boats 
engaged in the latter expedition suffered very much, 
and at the time of my joining the squadron there were 
several new boats just fitted out to make up for the 
recent losses incurred up Red river, and to enlarge and 
increase the efficiency of the squadron generally. 

The principal duty of the vessels of the squadron, 
during the last year of the war, was to convoy trading 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


9 


boats and packets, and patrol the river to prevent the 
crossing of rebel forces, and the smuggling of ammu¬ 
nition and supplies from one side of the river to the 
other. In order to accomplish this, all skiffs and 
canoes were broken up along both banks. The rebels 
had been so weakened on the river that they could not 
bring batteries to the banks to fire on the gunboats, 
but occasionally small parties of guerillas would hide 
behind wood piles and fire a volley at a passing boat, 
doing small damage. Once or twice, as at Randolph, 
Tennessee, they would lay in ambuscade, and when a 
packet was about landing, attempt to rush on board 
and capture it. In the case above mentioned, two 
army paymasters, who were passengers, lost their lives 
in defending the boat. In relating the services per¬ 
formed by the boat to which I was attached, I shall 
hereafter tell how we prevented the capture of another 
packet, at Tiptonville, Tennessee. 

The squadron was divided into districts, in each of 
which vessels were constantly cruising, commanded by 
a division officer, and each vessel patrolled a certain 
portion of the district. 


2 


CHAPTER II. 


Some account of the Mississippi River from Cairo to 
Vicksburg , from personal observations.—Places on 
the East side .— West side of the river. — Island 
Number Ten.—Memphis to Vicksburg .— Vicksburg. 


IjSOR fourteen months my home was on 
1 R< hoard the gunboat Huntress, and about 

Tf twelve of those months were spent in 
® cruising between Cairo, Illinois, and 
Memphis, Tennessee. During that time 
I had opportunities for observing the river under a 
great variety of conditions. When I first joined the 
Huntress, in June, 1864, the water was low, although 
not at its very lowest stage, which happened in 
August. Numerous sandbars were to be seen above 
water, and at one place near Ashport, on the Tennes¬ 
see side, there was a steamboat high and dry some 
distance from the water, which got afloat again in 





OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


II 


October or November, during the fall rise. The water 
usually commences coming up in the channel in Sep¬ 
tember, and rises some ten or fifteen feet above its 
lowest stage, and then subsides, to rise again in the 
spring, when it fills its banks and overflows on the 
west side for long distances. At New Madrid, Mis¬ 
souri, in the summer of 1864, we had to 'climb a bank 
full thirty feet to reach the town; and in April, 1865, 
I walked from the forecastle of the boat, about one 
foot from the water line, direct to the bank. It was 
during a similar high stage of water, in April, 1862, 
that the union gunboats were enabled to run around 
Island Number Ten, through St. James bayou, a very 
insignificant appearing channel at ordinary stages of 
the river. At Osceola, Arkansas, the leading citizens 
informed me that the water set back into the country 
for nearly forty miles, so that a person could navigate 
that distance in a light skiff. Some attempts had been 
made to build levees at the lowest points along the 
banks, before the war, but they were of very little use 
in consequence of being incomplete. Congress, sev¬ 
eral years previous, had given all the “swamp lands” 
to the states, to encourage and aid them in building 
levees, but these lands—being some of the richest— 
fell into the hands of party favorites in many cases, 
for small compensation. 

The banks of the Mississippi, from Cairo to Vicks- 


12 


REMINISCENCES 


burg, are of a rich sandy loam, entirely free from 
stones or rocks, and with every rise and fall of the 
water masses of this soil are washed away in places, 
and the channel and facilities for landing at various 
points are completely changed. Thus, at New Mad¬ 
rid, in June, 1864, the headquarters of the United 
States garrison were some four rods from the bank of 
the river, and in the following spring the headquarters’ 
shanty had to be taken down and moved back, to keep 
it from falling into the river. A fort built by the 
rebels in 1861, about half a mile south of the land¬ 
ing, was nearly all washed away the last time I saw 
it, in June, 1865. The navigable channel of the 
river had changed during the previous year, coming 
down on the Tennessee side of Island Number Ten, 
instead of the Missouri side, as it had done for 
many years previous, and the water seemed to flow 
with great force against the banks at New Madrid, and 
then, taking a turn, rushed over to the other side, cut¬ 
ting into the banks there at about the same rate. 
Citizens told me that in the course of the past forty 
years the village of New Madrid had been all moved 
back more than the width of the river, and that where 
New Madrid, Missouri, once stood was a sandbar, in 
the state of Kentucky, overgrown with cotton wood. 
At Point Pleasant, about ten miles below, where 
steamboats landed only one or two years before, a 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


13 


sandbar had formed which rendered it impossible for a 
steamboat to land, and even difficult to be approached 
in the lightest skiff. 

This continual shifting of the channels and land¬ 
marks on the banks renders the duties of the steam¬ 
boat pilots very arduous and difficult, as they have to 
be constantly on the watch in every direction, to see 
if the landmarks are the same as on the last previous 
trip, or if there is any difference in the appearance of 
the water, denoting a change in the navigable channel. 

It is quite noticeable how few places there are along 
the river suitable for town sites. There is not a single 
good one on the west bank of the river between Cairo 
and Memphis, a distance of two hundred and forty 
miles, and but five on the east side, viz., Columbus 
and Hickman, Kentucky, and Fort Pillow, Fulton and 
Randolph, Tennessee. There are numerous points 
where landings are daily made by the packets at wood 
yards, plantations, etc., etc., but no other places than 
those named where towns can grow up and thrive, as 
they do on the Hudson and other rivers east. 

Columbus, Kentucky, the county seat of Hickman 
county, is situated nineteen miles below Cairo. A 
high bluff (known as the “First Chickasaw Bluff”) 
runs in to the river above the village. This w^ seized 
by the rebels in 1861, and crowned by a fort, which, 
as the river takes one of its bends here, easily pre- 


14 


REMINISCENCES 


vented the passage of boats below. The village stands 
on a plain immediately below the bluff, and is only 
approached with ease by land, from a southerly direc¬ 
tion. It must have been a place of considerable busi¬ 
ness before the war. There was a branch of the 
State bank of Kentucky, and the Mobile and Ohio 
railroad came to the river there. It did not have over 
one thousand inhabitants. In order to keep the river 
open, and to prevent annoyance from small rebel 
bands, the government was compelled, besides having 
a patrol of gunboats, to maintain military posts at 
various points. Columbus was one of the points thus 
garrisoned. Belmont, immediately opposite Columbus, 
famous as the place where General Grant fought his 
first battle with the rebels, had no appearance of a 
village, and would never attract the least notice from 
passengers on the boats, unless their attention was 
specially called to it. General Grant only went there 
to attack an open camp of the rebels, to create a 
diversion and attract attention from another enter¬ 
prise ; and the rebels supposed themselves fully pro¬ 
tected by the fort across the river. 

Hickman, Kentucky, sixteen miles below Columbus, 
is built on a bluff running nearly parallel with the river 
(the second Chickasaw bluff), and is a much more 
sightly place than Columbus. It was also the resi¬ 
dence of some of the local aristocracy of the vicinity, 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


15 


being the county seat of Fulton county. The Nashville, 
Chatanooga and St. Louis railroad came in here, before 
the rebellion. The court house, which stood on the top 
of. the bluff in rear of the town, was not a very hand¬ 
some building, but there were some very good churches 
in the place, and very pretty private residences, with 
good blocks of brick stores. It was not regularly 
garrisoned by the government, and so became subject 
to great annoyances from guerilla bands, who drove 
off many citizens, forcing them to live elsewhere. 
Several times they made plundering raids into the 
town, robbing and burning, it would almost seem from 
very wantonness. It contained about one thousand 
inhabitants. 

Fort Pillow, Tennessee, is one hundred and fifty 
miles below, Hickman, by the river, while it is proba¬ 
bly not much.over half that distance by land. It is 
near the head of the bluff of which Fulton is the foot. 
There was no settlement here before the war. The 
bluffs come in to the river and run parallel with it for 
about ten miles, nearly to the mouth of the Hatchie 
river. The river makes an immense bend above Fort 
Pillow, and the point w r as seized by the rebel general 
of that name, who built the fort and named it after 
himself. The landing was very inconvenient, and it 
cost much to maintain it when held by the government. ^ 
After the recapture of the fort by General Forrest, in 


i6 


REMINISCENCES 


April, 1864, and the massacre of the garrison, the place 
was abandoned as unnecessary for a garrison. 

Fulton, Tennessee, near the foot of the bluffs, has 
a very convenient landing, and a good sized town will 
probably grow up there. Large quantities of cotton 
had been shipped there before the rebellion, and in 
1864 and 1865 quite a number of bales were shipped. 
There was only a single dwelling, and a church and 
storehouse, when we first began landing there, but 
after the collapse of the rebellion, in the spring of 
1865, a new storehouse was erected, and it was ex¬ 
pected that a village would grow up soon. A young 
man interested in the place informed me that at one 
time it was thought Fulton might grow up to rival 
Memphis, but the latter being named as the terminus 
of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, went ahead. 
The Hatchie river, a long, shallow and sluggish stream, 
empties into the Mississippi a short distance below 
Fulton. On the south side of the Hatchie the rebels 
built a fort early in the war, which they named Fort 
Wright. Its situation was low, and not at all what 
would be considered commanding. 

Randolph, a short distance below the mouth of the 
Hatchie, seemed to have been quite a village before 
the war, as there were the remains of several houses 
about on the bluffs. The formation of the place is 
more like Hickman than Fulton or Columbus. There 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


17 


is a bluff rising gradually from the river, forming a 
ridge a short distance back, which could easily be laid 
out into a village. At the south part of the bluffs the 
rebels had another earthwork or fort, named Fort 
Randolph, built early in the war, but not occupied 
very long, according to appearances. There was only 
a storehouse there during my acquaintance with it. 

Memphis was a fine city of twenty or twenty-five 
thousand inhabitants, situated on a bluff rising gradu¬ 
ally from the river, running parallel with it. It is well 
laid out, and contains many fine blocks of stores and 
three or four large hotels. Several years before the 
war, while the south was all-powerful in the union, a 
navy yard was located there, where the Wolf and 
Loosahatchie rivers, streams of small consequence, 
empty into the Mississippi. Here large sums of pub¬ 
lic money were wasted for the benefit of the south, 
and then the yard was donated to the state of Tennes¬ 
see or city of Memphis, as worthless and useless to the 
general government. The rebels took possession of 
the shops, etc., remaining, when they closed the Mis¬ 
sissippi to the union, and made use of the articles 
there to fit out their gunboats that ran up to Island 
Number Ten and Columbus. When Memphis fell, 
the government took possession of the navy yard and 
found the workshops very convenient for many pur¬ 
poses during the war. 


3 


i8 


REMINISCENCES 


As to the other places laid down on the maps, on 
the east side of the river, a brief paragraph will suffice. 

Merriweathers’, opposite Island Number Ten, is 
merely a plantation landing. Obionsville I never 
heard of, but there was a landing fourteen miles from 
New Madrid, in Tennessee, named Tiptonville, where 
there was a storehouse and straggling hamlet. Consid¬ 
erable cotton and corn were shipped from this point, a 
road coming in there from the back country, across a 
bridge over Reelfoot Lake. It was almost surrounded 
by water when the river was at its highest stage. Hale’s 
Point is on an island at the mouth of the Obion river, 
down which cotton and tobacco are transported in flat- 
boats. At the highest stages of water the point is all 
overflowed, and a platform three or four feet high is 
necessary to keep the cotton and tobacco from being 
damaged. Ashport is a straggling settlement near 
the mouth of the Forked Deer river, and is overflowed 
by the Mississippi at high water. A map of the river 
locates a town named Randolph opposite Island Num¬ 
ber Forty, but although we passed the place many 
times I never saw any signs of it. 

Several places are laid down on the maps, appar¬ 
ently villages, on the west side of the river, but in 
reality I only saw two places that could be so recog¬ 
nized. 

New Madrid, Missouri, situated at the head of the 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


x 9 


great bend in the river, is one of the oldest towns in 
the west. It is seventy miles below Cairo, and was 
settled by the Spaniards during their occupancy of the 
Mississippi valley, and was quite a village in 1811, 
when the great earthquake did so much damage in 
that vicinity. It is the county seat of New Madrid 
county, and has a court house—not a very imposing 
building—several stores, but no church, and, as before 
stated, is nearly overflowed by the Mississippi river at 
its highest stages. The village is small, but was a 
place of considerable business, Most of the houses 
were located on a single street, running back from the 
river. There had been a female academy here before 
the war. The place was garrisoned after its capture 
from the rebels, in 1862. 

Osceola,* Arkansas, the county seat of Mississippi 
county, one hundred and ten miles from New Madrid 
and eighty from Memphis, was quite a village, by all 
accounts, before the rebellion. The court house was 


* It was at Osceola that a horrible outrage was reported to 
have been committed, at the opening of the rebellion. A. D. 
Richardson, in his Field, Dungeon and Escape , says that he 
heard at Cairo, from a passenger who came up on the last boat 
before the river closed, that a union man was seen hanging by 
the heels there. I am inclined to disbelieve this story, although 
there were some hard customers in that vicinity, as I may relate 
hereafter. 



20 


REMINISCENCES 


destroyed by fire, and many of the houses were taken 
down and removed to Fort Pillow, below, on the other 
side, by the forces at the latter point, so that it made 
a very small show from the river when I was there. 
The water came in, and at its highest stages nearly 
overflowed the place. 

Of the other places on the west side which have 
names on the map very little can be said. Point 
Pleasant, as already noticed, a short distance below 
New Madrid, although at one time quite a shipping 
point for cotton and corn, was not approachable by 
boat during my cruisings. Guyoso and Carruthers- 
ville would not be noticed by passengers on the boats. 
During the winter of 1864 and 1865 a Jew trader at 
New Madrid managed to have a company from the 
garrison at that place sent to Carruthersville, and they 
built a stockade, which they evacuated after a little 
time, and a company of “home guards” came in and 
held it, so that a quantity of corn was shipped from 
there, and the Jew sold some goods. Although we 
landed there several times, there did not appear to be 
jnany inhabitants in the vicinity. The site for a vil¬ 
lage was not so good as at New Madrid. 

Fletcher’s, Dr. Hardin’s, McGavvock’s, and 
Craighead’s, set down on the maps, are only the 
names of owners of plantations at the points named. 

There are numerous islands in the Mississippi, and 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


21 


by some agreement between boatmen and others they 
are known by numbers, from Cairo to near Milliken’s 
Bend, where we come to Island Number One Hundred 
and Two. Number one is a short distance below 
Cairo, number five opposite Columbus, number six 
opposite Hickman, while number ten is in a large 
bend of the river a short distance above New Madrid. 
It stands high out of the water, and commands the 
river for a long distance above. The river there first 
runs down below the line of the state of Kentucky, so 
that Island Number Ten lies in Tennessee, and then 
returning it leaves quite a township belonging to the 
state of Kentucky, bounded on three sides by the 
river, and on the south by Tennessee. This portion 
of Kentucky is known as Madrid Bend, or “The 
Bend,” for short. From Island Number Ten to Tip- 
tonville is only four miles across the neck of land, 
while it is thirty miles by the river. Island Number 
Ten was fortified by the rebels, and gave General 
Pope and Commodore Foote considerable trouble in 
turning it. After the union forces got below it, through 
St. James bayou, the rebels evacuated it and retreated 
by the way of Tiptonville, Tennessee. The island was 
garrisoned by the union troops until the spring of 1864, 
when it was found unnecessary to retain troops there, 
and it was evacuated. When I first visited it, in 1864, 
it was overgrown with rank vegetation. The earth- 


22 


REMINISCENCES 


works, soldiers’ huts, etc., were standing, but rapidly 
going to decay. 

In June, 1865, while at Mound City, waiting to be 
put out of commission, the Huntress, with other “tin 
clads,” was ordered to proceed to Vicksburg, to aid in 
towing up some of the iron clads stationed below. We 
made the trip to Vicksburg as quickly as possible, but 
were detained there a few days for repairs to the boiler. 
Returning against the current with an iron clad in tow 
was rather slow work, but the opportunities for obser¬ 
vation were rather limited, and I can sum up the result 
in a few words. So far as I could see, there was no 
point suitable for a town site on the east side of the 
river between Memphis and Vicksburg; while on the 
west side there are four very desirable points. The 
banks on both sides resembled very much the west 
bank between Cairo and Memphis, as noticed before, 
there being the same absence of stones or rocks. At 
the mouth of the St. Francis river was a small village, 
and Napoleon, at the mouth of the Arkansas river, was 
a point of some importance, but not very inviting in 
appearance. It had the reputation before the rebel¬ 
lion of being the very worst place on the Mississippi 
—a very headquarters for gamblers, thieves, murder¬ 
ers, and people of those classes. Helena, at the 
mouth of the White river, had a similar reputation, 
but it had a more inviting look from the river. Slave- 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


23 


holders did not like to encourage settlements along 
the river much below Memphis, as they were apt to 
become the resorts of the idle and vicious. Many 
places where from three to four thousand bales of 
cotton were shipped during a season would have only 
a solitary storehouse in view. I did not land between 
Memphis and Vicksburg, except at Skipwith’s landing, 
a point where some navy coal barges were stationed, 
and where we stopped a few hours to take on coal. 
There was no appearance of a settlement there. 

During our stay at Vicksburg I made frequent visits 
on shore, and went out to the fortifications in the rear 
of the town. The city is built on a side hill ascending 
from the water, resembling Memphis in that respect in 
a slight degree. Instead of there being, however, a 
wide street open on the side next the river, like the 
“ front row,” for a long distance, at Memphis, the 
principal street here is built up on both sides, near 
and parallel with the river. The court house, situated 
near the top of the hill, is a beautiful and sightly 
building. On the side facing the river the hill is cut 
through for a street, and it was in the bank, entering 
from this street, that many of the caves were built by 
the inhabitants during the long siege. Where Gen¬ 
eral Grant held his famous talk with General Pem¬ 
berton, and arranged for the surrender, was a short 
distance from the mine which was exploded at the 


24 


REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


time of the assault. The tree which had marked the 
spot was carried away after the surrender for relics, 
and the soldiers took a marble monument from a yard 
in the city, put on it a suitable inscription, and set it 
to mark the spot. This was surrounded by an iron 
fence, and was, of course, the point of most interest. 
At the north of this was a cottage, built of wood, 
which was perforated by musket balls on all sides. It 
was situated within General Grant’s lines, but was 
quite prominent and within reach of the musketry 
from the rebel lines. It could not have been a very 
desirable place of residence during those eventful 
months. 


CHAPTER III 


The Mississippi River from St. Louis to Cairo, with 
some accowit of the Boats navigating the Missis¬ 
sippi and its tributaries, and the dangers and diffi¬ 
culties to which they are subject. 


^^JTC^'FTER the surrender of all the armies 
'f' ^ ie re ^ e ^ on » t ^ ie gunboats were 
ordered to Mound City to be dis- 
mantled and put out of commission. 
There was a large amount of ord¬ 
nance and stores at Mound City 
which it was desirable to place in a more secure place 
than was to be found there, so several boats were 
loaded and sent to Jefferson barracks, where the gov¬ 
ernment had land to spare for storage purposes. The 
Huntress made three trips, which gave me something 
of an opportunity to inspect the river and country 
adjacent on each side. I found considerable differ- 
4 








26 


REMINISCENCES 


ence in the appearance of the river banks, particularly 
on the Missouri side, from that noticed below. There 
were rocky bluffs at Cape Girardeau, and quarries that 
will prove valuable as settlements increase below. 
Cape Girardeau is sometimes called the “ Marble 
City," from its valuable quarries. There are several 
apparently good points for towns along the river bank, 
between St. Louis and Cairo, mostly, however, on the 
Missouri side. The Illinois shore is not entirely de¬ 
void of town sites, but the country along the river 
does not appear so well calculated for settlement as 
on the west side. There is the same difficulty in 
regard to the navigable channel of the river above 
that I have mentioned as occurring below Cairo. 
The channel of the river is subject to change by the 
forming of sandbars by the rise and fall of the water. 
Thus, at the time of our going up and down between 
Jefferson barracks and Cairo, it was altogether impos¬ 
sible for a steamboat to land at the beautiful old town 
of St. Genevieve. Passengers for that town had to 
be landed at Little Rock, some two or three miles 
above, or taken ashore in the lightest of skiffs. 

St. Louis is a fine city, situated on a gentle side 
hill rising from the river. When the last remnants of 
the slaveocracy, who formed an incubus upon all the 
country south and west, is gone forever, then St. Louis, 
with other towns on the Mississippi river, will improve 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


27 


and take rank with other places west and north where 
slavery never held sway. There was considerable anti¬ 
slavery feeling in St. Louis before the rebellion, caused 
by the German population, led by Frank P. Blair, but 
the great commercial interests rather bowed to the 
slave holders, from whom they derived much profit. 
It is a good situation for a great grain mart, to ship 
via New Orleans, and measures have been taken since 
the rebellion to open the business by building eleva¬ 
tors, etc. 

Carondelet is a suburb of St. Louis, lying on the 
south. It is a very pleasant place, and easily accessi¬ 
ble from St. Louis by the Iron Mountain railroad, over 
which several trains are run daily. The current is very 
swift in front of the place at times, so that boats can 
not land as well as at St. Louis. 

We made few landings on either side to examine the 
towns or make inquiries about the country lying back 
of them, but I have no doubt a few years will show 
thriving villages at many points where comparatively 
small settlements are now found. Cape Girardeau 
and Commerce, where we landed early one morning, 
had several substantial-looking houses and places of 
business, although their markets were very slim, the 
only articles we were offered in the line of supplies for 
our mess, on Friday morning, being watermelons and 
young black bears. 


28 


REMINISCENCES 


There are several romantic looking places on the 
west side of the river, which have been given fancy 
names by the first navigators, and one or two of the 
same sort on the east. Thus we find at Evans’ Land¬ 
ing, on the Illinois side, a place called “ The Devil’s 
Bake Oven,” from some resemblance of a rock to an 
old fashioned oven; between Neeley’s and Vincil’s, on 
the Missouri shore, is “The Devil’s Tea Table;” on 
the same side, a little further up the river, is “The 
Devil’s Backbone.” At one point there is a high 
bluff coming out to the river, with smooth rock face, 
some two hundred feet high. Here, in former times, 
the owner of lead mines near by made shot, having a 
small building jutting over the top of the bluff, from 
which he poured the molten lead so that it fell into a 
pool of water at the bottom. Across a ravine from 
this natural shot tower is a beautiful private residence, 
approached by a winding carriage-way from the bank 
of the river. I was informed that the lady owner of 
the place (daughter of the original settler), while trav¬ 
eling on the Rhine, was struck with the appearance of 
a small feudal castle, and the resemblance of its loca¬ 
tion to this position. Procuring plans, on her return 
she had this place built and laid out to imitate the 
Rhine castle. At the foot of the hill, which was nearly 
smooth toward the river, was a stone house which I 
was also informed had a stairway leading from the 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


2 9 


back side, which set into the hill, up through the hill 
to the “castle.” 

The current of the Mississippi river is very swift, 
running from three to five miles per hour, and in times 
of high water even faster, in some places. Before the 
invention of steamboats few attempts were made to 
navigate the river against this current. Produce from 
the Ohio and the few settled portions of the upper 
Mississippi was floated down to New Orleans in flat 
boats, arks and “ broadhorns,” which were broken up 
and sold for old lumber after the lading was disposed 
of, and the crew made their way home by land—a very 
slow and hazardous proceeding. The water in the 
river below the mouth of the Mississippi is very muddy, 
so that a glass full dipped out of the river and left to 
stand a short time will show quite a deposit of sand at 
the bottom. It is used altogether for drinking and 
culinary purposes on all the boats, and though at first 
the appearance of it is rather forbidding, a person 
soon comes to like it, and it is drunk with a relish. 

The steamboats navigating the Mississippi and its 
tributaries are all driven by high pressure engines, and 
the boilers are provided with places where the sand 
and sediment from the water can be blown out at 
short intervals when the boat is running. They are 
driven by wheels at the side, like those on the Hud¬ 
son, or by one large wheel at the stern. It is supposed 



3° 


REMINISCENCES 


that a stern-wheel boat can run better in low water 
than a side-wheel boat, and then it is more convenient 
for towing purposes. While the wheels at the side are 
covered with neat wheel houses, as on boats east, the 
stern-wheel boat has no such protection for its propel¬ 
ling power, and has been likened to a wheelbarrow 
drawn backwards. Boats are built that carry tolera¬ 
bly heavy loads, and only draw fourteen inches of 
water. *The tow boats, instead of taking the boats in 
tow astern, connected by tow lines, have their tows 
lashed forward, and push them. This is rendered 
necessary by the rapid current and crooked channels 
of the river, in order that the boats in tow may be 
completely under control. Sometimes as many as ten 
loaded coal barges may be seen in tow of one of the 
powerful Pittsburgh stern-wheel boats, proceeding 
slowly down the river, a little faster than the flow of 
the water—just enough to be under control of the 
pilot in charge. The coal barges have no rudder or 
means of guidance, but the stern-wheel boat, by reason 
of its square stern, has at least three rudders, con¬ 
nected with each other by rods, in a rude sort of way, 
but very strong. 

Passenger boats, or “packets,” on the Mississippi 
are generally of the side-wheel kind, built at consider¬ 
able expense, if intended for the New Orleans trade. 
Those running on the Ohio, from Cincinnati or Lou- 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


3 


isville to Memphis or New Orleans, are somewhat 
shorter than those intended for running on the Missis¬ 
sippi alone, with their wheels farther aft than the lat¬ 
ter, a peculiarity rendered necessary in consequence 
of the locks in the canal around the falls in the Ohio, 
at Louisville. The packet boats carry freight on the 
main deck and in a shallow hold, while nearly all the 
passengers are carried on the deck over the boilers. 
Sometimes a few deck passengers are carried on the 
boiler deck. The accommodations for passengers are 
much more limited in proportion to their capacity for 
freight than on the Hudson river boats. The passen¬ 
ger deck, as we may style it, is generally arranged with 
a long saloon, having a tier of state rooms on each 
side. This saloon is used for a dining and social hall, 
the after portion of it being generally arranged for the 
occupancy of ladies and families, and shut off from 
the forward part by folding doors, closed at night. 
The ladies’ saloon on all regular packets is supplied 
with a good piano, upon which very frequently one or 
more of the officers can perform very well. These 
packets make trips lasting from two days and nights 
to a week, and consequently passengers require amuse¬ 
ment more than on boats where a trip lasts but a sin¬ 
gle day or night. Consequently, in engaging waiters 
and a barber for the shop on the guards, care is taken 
to find some men who can make up a band for danc- 


3 2 


REMINISCENCES 


ing. Almost every evening the band takes a position 
in the saloon, aft, and strikes up for a dance. After 
the dance, a hint is given to the gentlemen who have 
shared in it to remember the music. In the forward 
part of the main saloon, from which a view can be 
had down its full length, is generally to be found the 
clerk’s office, where all the business of the boat is trans¬ 
acted, and on one side of the tier of state rooms is fre¬ 
quently to be found a bar, where qualifying fluids are 
dispensed to those who fear to take the water raw. 
Sometimes this bar is outside of the tier of state rooms, 
over the guards of the boat. A barber shop is also to 
be found on the guards, while the kitchen is generally 
found just forward of the wheel, on the same floor with 
the saloon. Over the passenger saloons and state rooms 
is “The Texas,” containing a small number of state 
rooms for the accommodation of the officers, pilots, 
etc., and on the top of the “Texas” is the pilot house, 
a place where parties of ladies and gentlemen fre¬ 
quently resort to overlook the surrounding country, 
and gossip and joke. During the war the pilot houses 
were always cased with iron for the protection of the 
occupants, that being the first point aimed at to dis¬ 
able a boat. 

In the season for shipping cotton, bales of this arti¬ 
cle are stowed all about on the freight deck, leaving 
only space for ingress and egress to the furnaces, and 


REMINISCENCES 


33 


then the piles are continued on the forecastle and 
guards until they rise even with the roof* of the passen¬ 
ger saloon. Boats so laden are in great danger from 
fire, and several watchmen are kept in various exposed 
positions, with buckets of water ; still, if a spark once 
falls and is unnoticed a single minute, the fate of the 
boat is sealed—its destruction is almost inevitable, 
and generally several of the passengers and crew per¬ 
ish with it. The flames spread with such rapidity 
that but a very short time is left for the escape of 
those on board. Every steamboat is provided with 
two heavy spars, rigged with suitable tackle for use 
when the boats get aground at low water; a case of 
frequent occurrence at such season. It is no unusual 
occurrence to see two or three large packets aground 
within a short distance of each other at certain points. 
In going down to Vicksburg the Huntress got aground 
in “ making a crossing ” at the head of Island No. 30, 
and in a few minutes two of the gunboats following 
were in the same predicament. Boats going down the 
river, grounding on a sandbar, with the force of the 
current in addttion to their momentum, have a hard 
job to work off, as frequently the current, at every 
attempt, forces the boat farther on to the bar. Boats 
going on a bar at high water sometimes get so firmly 
set that they remain there for months, until the river 
falls and rises again, as I have mentioned in a former 
5 


34 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


chapter. In making a landing steamboats always 
round to, if going down, so as to land with the bow 
up stream, the strong current rendering such a pro¬ 
ceeding necessary. There are no wharfs or docks 
along the river, but at large towns or landings where 
there is much business, wharf boats are tied to the 
bank, with gang planks ashore, against which the 
steamers land. These wharf boats have rooms for 
storing freight, etc., and collect wharfage of all boats 
landing against them, as well as charge for freight 
stored. 

Among the dangers to which boats navigating the 
Mississippi are subject, are running ’upon “wreck 
heaps”—that is, heaps of debris where boats have 
sunk in former times—and snags. Boats are most in 
danger of the “ wreck heaps” in going down, and only 
fear the snags in going up. In August, 1864, the 
John J. Roe, a passenger steamer, ran on a wreck 
heap, and was lost, a short distance below New Mad¬ 
rid, early in the morning, during a light fog. The pilot 
mistook one clump of trees ashore for another farther 
down, and steering for it, in consequence of the fog, 
run out of his course a very little. I heard the boat 
pass in the early morning, and in a very short time 
after a prolonged whistle was sounded. The captain 
of the Huntress immediately weighed anchor and ran 
down to her, finding her fast, with her bottom broke 


REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 35 

in for nearly two hundred feet, and her stern broken off 
partly, so as to hang in the water. The Roe had part 
of a regiment of Iowa cavalry on board, and many of 
the horses perished, but the passengers and crew were 
all saved. The fog cleared almost instantly after the 
boat grounded. Another boat was lost abreast of 
Island No. 10 in the October following, by running 
upon something of the same character. Snags are 
trees that have fallen into the current with some of 
the bank, and become fast at the roots. The force 
of the current keeps the top pointing down stream, 
scarcely showing a ripple on the surface in many 
cases. Nothing but the most careful attention on the 
part of the pilot can keep the boat from running 
against them. While running in tow of a packet one 
night the Huntress had a very narrow escape. Boats 
are frequently seen with guards partially carried away 
by snags. 


CHAPTER IV. 


First Experience “ Under Fire”—Joining the Hun¬ 
tress—Routine of Life on a Gunboat. 


N the fourteenth of June, having all 
my papers in order, I took a state¬ 
room on the naval despatch boat, 
to leave Mound City on the day 
following. The New National was 
lying just outside the admiral’s 
flag ship, the Black Hawk, while ahead and astern 
were several other gunboats fitting out to cruise down 
the river. About ten o’clock that night, while asleep 
in my room, I was roused by a gun, apparently fired 
just over my head. In a moment another was heard 
and then a larger one a little ahead of us. Jumping 
out of bed I soon slipped on some clothing and went 
out into the saloon, when I received the following ex¬ 
planation : The naval small pox hospital boat was 





REMINISCENCES 


37 


moored to an island across the river, near the Ken¬ 
tucky shore. Information had been received the day 
before that a band of rebel guerrillas intended visiting 
the hospital to steal the medicines kept there, for the 
use of the rebels. A signal had been made from the 
hospital that the guerrillas were coming and the first 
gun that had disturbed me was from one of the small 
howitzers on the roof of the Black Hawk, which was 
followed by another from the other howitzer and then 
firing was commenced from the large Parrot guns on 
the forcastle of the Black Hawk, and the hundred 
pound gun from the Avenger, which soon crept out' 
from the shore, astern of us, and steamed up the river. 
In the morning it was understood that the alarm was 
false, caused by the fears of the hospital attendants. 

June 15, at 5 p. m., the New National got under 
weigh and started down the river, and I took my first 
look at the Mississippi. We passed Columbus before 
dark, and saw a large number of soldiers of the gar¬ 
rison enjoying themselves bathing in the river. With 
so many new things to see and examine, I have a 
very faint remembrance of the first trip to Memphis, 
for it was at the latter place we found the Huntress, 
after dark, on the seventeenth. A number of gun¬ 
boats were lying alongside the coal barges, and it was 
rather a slippery walk I had across the barges and up 




OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


and down the muddy bank, to find the boat which wax 
to be my home for the next fourteen months. 

Guided by one of the crew of the Huntress, I made 
my way on board and to the cabin of the command¬ 
ing officer, Acting Master John S. Dennis, an old 
whaleman, with whom was Lieutenant Commander 
John G. Mitchell, of the ironclad Carondelet, who 
was in command of the district to which the Huntress 
belonged; and for convenience of quicker movement 
over his .district, extending from Columbus, Kentucky, 
to Memphis, he had made the Huntress his flag ship. 
All persons in command of a vessel are by courtesy 
addressed as “captain,” and I shall so speak of them 
hereafter. In the ward room adjoining the captain’s 
cabin, I was introduced to the surgeon, chief engineer 
and two pilots of the Huntress, with whom I was to 
mess. In consequence of the damage to and loss of 
vessels in the Red river expedition there were urgent 
calls for more gunboats to cruise on the Mississippi, 
and the Huntress, a newly-fitted up boat, had been 
sent down to Memphis in haste, to finish her outfit, 
without her full complement of officers or crew. Capt. 
Dennis was a thorough seaman, and having served in 
the fleet at Hilton Head and before Charleston, he 
was well acquainted with the naval routine. He had 
fitted up all it was possible from the Memphis navy 
yard and received a draft of men (sailors discharged 


REMINISCENCES 


39 


from the hospital), so that he was ready to go up the 
river the day following. Captain Mitchell being de¬ 
sirous of examining his whole district, we proceeded, 
with brief stoppages at the other gunboats in the dis¬ 
trict (the Carondelet, New Era and Robb), to Colum¬ 
bus, Kentucky, returning in a short time to New Mad¬ 
rid, in the vicinity of which we were required to remain, 
to act in conjunction with the garrison at that place. 
As I have summed up the result of a part of my 
observations on the river in previous chapters, I will 
now give a brief account of the Huntress and gunboat 
routine. 

Everything possible is regulated by general orders 
from the secretary of the navy. Thus the arrange¬ 
ment of a boat, the rooms each officer shall occupy, 
who shall have precedence in the purchase of supplies 
even, is regulated by orders. The commanding offi¬ 
cer of a ship at sea is a complete autocrat. Upon 
him devolves all the responsibility for the safety of 
officers and crew. His orders therefore are supreme, 
and must be obeyed at once without question. He 
has the best quarters—a large and roomy cabin aft— 
with staterooms, kitchen, storeroom, etc., for his sole 
accommodation, also a steward, cook and servant. 
Sometimes he invites the paymaster or surgeon to 
mess with him, as they are staff officers, not held as 
firmly to routine as the line officers, consequently the 


40 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


familiarity of intimate daily intercourse at all times 
will not interfere with strict discipline. The ward 
room, next forward of the captain’s cabin, belongs to 
the officers next in rank, being the line officers, in¬ 
cluding all ensigns or those ranking between the en¬ 
signs and commanding officer, the staff officers, sur¬ 
geon, paymaster, chief engineer,'and, in the Missis¬ 
sippi squadron, the pilots. Each officer messing in 
the ward room has a stateroom or bedplace to him¬ 
self, and that mess take precedence next to the cabin, 
with a steward, cook and servants for the sole work of 
the mess. Forward of the ward room is the steerage, 
where the other line officers, assistant engineers,' sur¬ 
geon and paymaster’s clerks mess. The right hand 
side of every vessel, as you look forward, is styled the 
“starboard side,” and is the place of honor. The 
captain, on some boats, prohibited the other officers 
from using the guard on that side for usual promenad¬ 
ing, and all official visits to the captain must be made 
that way; on some boats a sentry or orderly is sta¬ 
tioned at the door of the captain’s cabin, on the star¬ 
board side; but there was no such strictness of cere¬ 
monial on the Huntress. Boats visiting a gunboat or 
man-of-war, approach on the starboard or port side, 
according to the rank of the officer in the boat. The 
line officers, according to regulations, have their state¬ 
rooms on the starboard side of the boat, while the'Staff 


REMINISCENCES 


4l 

occupy the port side, but this regulation was not 
strictly observed with us. Forward of the steerage on 
the Huntress, and most of the Mississippi gunboats, 
was another room from which the paymaster’s office 
opened. On these boats the quartv r deck was forward 
of the mess-rooms above mentioned. On the quarter 
deck is the station of the officer of the watch, who for 
the time being represents the commanding officer. The 
line officer next in rank to the captain is styled the 
executive officer, and all orders are issued through him, 
and he transmits them to the watch officer and so they 
are passed to the boatswain or others for execution. 
With the officer of the watch, on the small gunboats, 
was a rated man called a quartermaster, who stands 
on the lookout with a spyglass and reports approach¬ 
ing vessels or any other matter requiring attention. 
The watches commence at noon, for four hours, or 
eight bells, the ship’s bell being struck regularly at half 
hour intervals during the watch. At eight bells the 
officer calls his relief, who stands until six o’clock, 
then another watch stands until eight, and after that 
the watches stand for four hours, or eight bells, the 
change of half or “ dog watches,” being made daily 
between four and eight p. m. to prevent officers having 
to stand the same hours daily. At noon, and at 
eight in the evening, the quartermaster, before strik¬ 
ing eight bells, goes to the captain and reports “eight 


42 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


bells, sir,” and the captain generally replies “make it,” 
which is followed by the usual striking of the bell. 
Where two or more men-of-war are in company, the 
senior officer sets the time, and the bells are struck in 
the order of the rank of the commanding officers. 
The captain of a vessel is entitled to a boat with a 
picked crew, for his especial use; and the captain’s 
coxswain, on a large vessel, is quite an important offi¬ 
cer. When transferred from one ship to another, the 
captain is entitled to take his coxswain and boat’s 
crew, together with his steward and cook with him, if 
he desires. In leaving a vessel, the inferior officer 
enters the boat first, but the captain steps from the 
small boat first. In approaching a man-of-war the 
boat is hailed, and the answer denotes the rank of the 
officer and the honors he is entitled to receive on go¬ 
ing aboard. Thus a captain answers with the name 
of his vessel; ward room officers answer “aye, aye”; 
and steerage officers “no, no.” 

Life among the crew on the gun-deck is regulated 
as rigidly by routine as among the officers. They are 
divided into messes, and the places where each mem¬ 
ber of a mess shall eat and sleep is arranged by the 
commanding officer according to fixed rules. A cer¬ 
tain number of “petty officers,” rated from the crew, 
is first selected, among whom are one or more boat¬ 
swain’s mates, a master-at-arms, ship’s corporal, quar- 


REMINISCENCES 


43 


termasters, quartergunners, ship’s cook, etc. These 
petty officers mess together, none of them being al¬ 
lowed to mess with the ordinary crew. All orders re¬ 
quiring a boat’s crew or any'number of men to exe¬ 
cute them, are given through the boatswain’s mate of 
the watch. He blows his silver pipe or whistle and 
calls “A-l-1 H-a-n-d-s,” or whatever it may be, in a 
tone to be heard all through the deck. He calls all 
hands to turn out and lash their hammocks in the 
morning; then he calls to breakfast; next to scrub 
decks, and three mornings in the week to wash cloth¬ 
ing. After the decks are all washed up, the captain 
orders the uniform for the day, which varies according 
to fancy or the weather, being perhaps (in summer) 
white shirts, white trowsers, white caps and polished 
shoes; in winter blue shirts, caps, trowsers and pol¬ 
ished shoes, or some combination of the two. After 
the decks are in order and the men all in uniform, and 
clothes bags returned to the custody of the master-at- 
arms or ship’s corporal, the men are called to quarters 
and the division officers inspect the men at the guns, 
to see that they are all present and uniformed accord¬ 
ing to order. The division officers report the con¬ 
dition of their men to the executive officer, and he to 
the captain, who either orders “general quarters” or 
directs the men to be dismissed to their other duties. 
The master-at-arms is chief of police, and with his 


44 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


subordinate, the ship’s corporal, keeps a diligent watch 
for all infractions of discipline. They have the cus¬ 
tody of the men’s clothes-bags and see that the decks 
are kept free from dirt and litter. - At two bells (nine 
o’clock in the evening) one of these officers visits the 
steerage and puts out all the lights, and an hour later 
the ward room lights are put out by the same officer, 
except permission is given by the captain to allow 
them a little longer. Between half past eleven and 
twelve o’clock each day the ship’s cook takes a sam¬ 
ple of the dinner he is preparing for the crew to the 
watch officer on the quarter deck, to let him see that 
the food is well cooked and wholesome. If there is 
anything apparently wrong—a piece of musty or 
tainted meat or a poor quality of other articles likely 
to prove injurious if eaten by the crew—the fact is 
reported to the executive officer, who orders a survey, 
and if condemned, the food is thrown overboard and 
new rations of the article condemned issued. 

The surgeon each day has a call made by the 
boatswain’s mate for “the sick, lame and lazy,” to ap¬ 
pear for examination; and he can excuse a man from 
duty during such time as he considers his health to 
require. 

Care is taken on board of men-of-war to find some 
kind of employment for the crew so as to keep them 
from sickness or discontent. Thus the daily routine 


REMINISCENCES 


45 


includes much sweeping of decks, scrubbing of the 
same almost every day, and washing paint work about 
the vessel; and a supply of paints is kept on hand to 
repaint and brush up the woodwork. At certain hours 
of the day the men are allowed to overhaul their 
clothes bags and repair their clothing. The paymaster 
keeps supplies of ready made clothing, also cloth for 
making trowsers and shirts, thread, needles and other 
articles required by the men. Old sailors are gener¬ 
ally somewhat dandyish, and exhibit much taste in 
embroidering and trimming up their shirts, and they 
like also to have a surplus of buttons on their trowsers. 

On Sundays a general muster of the crew is had on 
the quarter deck. They are all mustered at the guns 
by their division officers, who carefully inspect them 
to see that they are clean and correct in their uni¬ 
forms, and then they are called by the boatswain’s 
mate to muster as above. Here the captain, with all 
the other officers appear, and the paymaster’s clerk calls 
the roll of the crew. As each man is called he answers 
with his rating, as “Seaman, sir,” “Landsman, sir,” or 
whatever it may be, and passes below to the gun deck. 
As he passes the captain and executive officer they 
look to him closely to see that he is correct in uniform 
and has a neat and proper look. If a bit of dirt is 
seen on his clothes, or his shoes are not well polished, 
or his face or hands show dirt, he is called to account. 


46 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


The crew below are arranged in messes for cooking 
and eating; in divisions, for service at the guns, and 
in watches for other duty. In slinging hammocks re¬ 
gard is had to these arrangements so that the officers 
know where to find the men needed for any service by 
night as well as day. 

General quarters is when the ports are closed, the 
battle lanterns lighted, the fires put out and magazine 
opened with everything arranged for going into action. 
At such times the men are put through every manoeu- 
ver of handling the heavy guns, passing cartridges, 
called off to repel boarders, and in other ways drilled 
for action. They are armed with cutlasses and revol¬ 
vers, and a portion also have muskets, and the old- 
fashioned boarding pikes are still found among the 
arms on board men-of-war, although the bayonet is a 
much more serviceable weapon. I will close this 
chapter by relating two incidents occurring during 
general quarters. 

The first time the crew of the Huntress went to 
general quarters was while on an expedition with a de¬ 
tachment of the garrison from New Madrid to Island 
No. 8. The detachment were scouring the island 
when the captain ordered “general quarters.” The 
captain took his position in the pilot house, from 
which speaking tubes ran to the different divisions at 
the guns below. After the men were all at quarters 


REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 47 

the captain gave a particular caution not to fire any 
of the guns, but to go through all the motions with 
care. He then commenced giving his orders for 
training and elevating the guns, finally giving the or¬ 
der “fire,” when bang went one of the guns, and the 
shell with which it was loaded was lodged in the bank, 
near where a colored man was standing, a careless 
spectator of the scene. “General quarters” came to 
a sudden stop just then, while the ship’s cook, who was 
captain of that gun received a severe reprimand. Where 
the spectator on shore went to was never ascertained. 

The captain of one of the gunboats on the Tennes¬ 
see river, soon after starting on his cruise, thought he 
would exercise his men at general quarters about mid¬ 
night. Accordingly the drummer beat to quarters and 
the captain stood by to see how quick the men could 
get their hammocks lashed and take their places at 
the guns. The men had scarcely taken their stations 
and answered to their division officers, before a shell 
from a gun on shore came in at the stern and swept 
through the center of the gun deck, cutting down sev¬ 
eral of the hammocks, but fortunately injuring none of 
the crew. The rebels had no doubt intended a surprise 
with their guns, but by good fortune the captain was in 
a position to surprise them by returning their fire at once. 
It may be that they supposed by hearing the beat to 
quarters on the gunboat that they had been discovered. 


CHAPTER V. 


Hickman and Columbus , Kentucky — Guerrilla Bands 
— Incidents—A Specimen of Southern Chivalry — 
The Story of a Union Man—The end of one Guer¬ 
rilla—Narrow Escape of a Reported Guerrilla. 



HAVE spoken in a previous chapter of 
the situations of Hickman, Columbus 


and other towns along the river, and I 
will now give reminiscences and experi¬ 
ences of gunboat life in their vicinity. 

Hickman was visited on our first trip 
up from Memphis, in June, 1864. As I have before 
mentioned it was garrisoned for short periods by the 
government forces, and at the time of our approach 
two passenger boats were lying at the bank taking off 
the few soldiers who had been stationed there, and 
many citizens were leaving with the soldiers. The 
gunboat Robb was at anchor off the place, protecting 






REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


49 


the evacuation. It was a bright and beautiful Sunday, 
and there was quite a show of life around where the 
boats were laying, but it looked dull up in the town. 
After laying there a short time we passed up to Colum¬ 
bus and returned the day following to find the place as 
quiet as though it was completely deserted. After 
tying up to the bank and laying there an hour or two a 
man came on board to see if he could not sell some 
berries, and after a little time another man came on 
board in a stealthy kind of way, to inform the captain 
that a gang of guerrillas were laying back of the town, 
and if we did not get away from the bank before dark 
they would be likely to steal down upon us. After¬ 
wards we visited Hickman several times and made 
many acquaintances there; and on election day in 
November following, we lay off the place with the 
crew at quarters to guard the polls from interruption 
by the scoundrels who continually infested the vicinity. 
There was always a gang hanging about, so that it was 
never regarded as safe for us to go out of sight of the 
gunboat without a guard. One evening the captain’s 
steward went a short distance from the boat to a house 
where he had before purchased milk, taking two of 
our best men, with muskets, as a guard. He went 
into the house, leaving his guards at the door. A gang 
crept up and captured the guards, without making the 
least disturbance, and for sometime we supposed the 

7 


5° 


REMINISCENCES 


men had deserted; but about four months afterwards 
a letter was received from them in a rebel prison in 
Mississippi telling of their capture. At Columbus I 
made the acquaintance of several citizens of Hickman 
who had been compelled to leave there to save their 
lives. Among these acquaintances was the rector of 
the Episcopal church, who owned a plantation a few 
miles back of Hickman. Politically he was a virulent 
opponent of Mr. Lincoln, and run for congress in 
1864 in opposition to the republican who was elected. 
He had been driven from his plantation by the so- 
called guerrillas, but in reality robber gangs who re¬ 
sided in his vicinity. They were accustomed to dis¬ 
guise themselves so as not to be readily recognized 
and visit places where they supposed the people had 
money, and demand it, using various violent means to 
obtain it. During the absence of Parson Coghill (my 
informant) they had visited his place and threatened 
to hang his wife, finally plundering the house of some 
fine wearing apparel and other valuables. To show 
the boldness of these thieves, I may remark that the 
wife of one of them came on board the Huntress 
wearing one of the dresses thus stolen. The same 
band visited a neighbor whom they found at home. 
Demanding some money which they believed to be in 
his possession, upon his refusal they put a rope about 
his neck and hung him up two or three times, but he 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


5 


proved obstinate. They then put a cord around his 
forehead, and using the barrel of a revolver as a lever 
twisted the cord so tight that his eyes fairly stuck out, 
then he succumbed and produced about $700. This 
last victim got on tr^ck of the robbers and took 
means to get evidence to procure conviction when 
civil law ruled again in Kentucky, but the scoundrels 
heard of his proceedings and waylaid and shot him. 
I give these two stories as well authenticated and 
worthy of belief. 

It seemed as though these guerrilla bands were a 
sort of rebel “home guard,” from all the information 
we could obtain. We heard of them going about in 
squads of six to twelve, and once or twice during the 
time I was on the river I heard of several squads 
joining together to make a conscripting raid, after re¬ 
cruits and deserters from the rebel army. We made 
the acquaintance of several families where the man of 
the house kept a hiding place away from home to 
which he resorted occasionally for a night’s lodging, 
when “conscripting” bands were about. 

In August, 1864, we had the following adventure 
with a band, known as Cushman’s, at Tiptonville : 
Lying at New Madrid, one morning a Louisville and 
Memphis packet came down, and the captain re¬ 
quested the Huntress to accompany him to Tipton¬ 
ville to guard him while he took on board a quantity 


5 2 


REMINISCENCES 


of corn for Memphis. As the packet could/jrun faster 
than the Huntress, she took us in tow, lashed along 
side. As we approached Tiptonville the usual signals 
were made by the packet’s whistle for landing, but 
there was no show of life on the bank, which was 
very suspicious. Captain Dennis of the Huntress, 
who was on the roof of his boat, ordered a division of 
men armed with muskets on the forecastle of the packet 
to go on shore, but before she made her landing that 
was countermanded and orders given for them to re¬ 
turn on the gunboat and go to quarters, the tow lines 
being cast off from the packet. As the Huntress 
backed out into the river a man was discovered some 
rods below, under the bank, making signals to back 
out. As soon as he came within hail, he gave us to 
understand that Cushman and his gang were in rear 
of the storehouse, hoping to capture the packet. A 
twenty-four pound shell from one of our howitzers 
was dropped behind the storehouse as well as could 
be done with all the elevation we could give, followed 
in quick succession by another, and then a thirty 
pounder from the Parrot followed. Soon after the 
first shell was dropped the citizens swarmed on the 
bank, and as we made the landing, came on board to 
inform us that Cushman had been watching for the 
packet expected to take the corn off, and had noti- 
tified the inhabitants that if any of them showed 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


53 


themselves to warn the boat off, he would shoot them. 
He and his men kept secreted not even watching to 
see if a gunboat was with the packet when she came 
down. The man who gave the alarm to us was an 
army spy who had been staying at Tiptonville a few 
weeks taking ambrotypes. He had packed up to 
leave on the packet, but Cushman made him unpack 
to take some pictures of himself, and then very kindly 
traded [even] his old boots for a new pair worn by 
the artist, in payment for the pictures. The guerril¬ 
las left in a hurry as soon as they found out the gun¬ 
boat was in company with the packet. Before leav¬ 
ing Tiptonville that day a gentleman living about half 
a mile back from the river, on the road by which the 
guerrillas retreated, came on board with a piece of 
shell which he said struck before the door of his house, 
throwing sand on to his dinner table. He said the 
guerrillas were very little in advance of the shell, re¬ 
treating as fast as their horses could carry them. 

Dr. Edward McGawock, who occupied a planta¬ 
tion about forty miles above Memphis, in Arkansas, 
had his house iron clad, that is, the doors and win¬ 
dows secured with boiler plate shutters on the inside, 
loopholed as a security against the guerrilla or robber 
bands who infested his vicinity. In January, 1865, 
two boat’s crews from the Huntress attempted to cap¬ 
ture a gang who were threatening Dr. McGavvock’s 


54 


REMINISCENCES 


place. They went up into a bayou, to an island and 
found the remains of a camp, but the rascals had fled. 
They had annoyed the doctor for a long time. 

In September, 1864, the following incident occurred 
which I relate as an illustration of vaunted southern 
chivalry. Several union men staying at New Madrid, 
who had been driven from their homes in the adjoin¬ 
ing county of Pemiscot, made application to the com¬ 
mander of the Huntress for assistance in getting their 
families up to New Madrid. Accordingly orders were 
sent to the gunboat New Era, cruising below, to look 
out for the refugees, and one of the men of the party 
went down to gather the families at Carruthersville. 
The New Era anchored near there to call in a packet 
and protect the taking on board the women and chil¬ 
dren. They were encamped about two days before a 
packet passed up, and the second night of their lying 
there a party of rebels came and fired two or three 
vollies into the camp. Fortunately no one was in¬ 
jured but their will was all the same. The crew of 
the New Era were called to quarters and a few shells 
sent over the camp, which drove off the rebels, and 
the next morning the whole party Were taken on board 
the gunboat for safety until a packet came up. 

One day in August, 1864, as two officers were go¬ 
ing down the bank at New Madrid, to go on board 
the Huntress, they passed a man who asked if they 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


55 


wanted to enlist any men on the gunboat. Being in¬ 
formed that they did, he followed along, and in a few 
minutes he was examined and shipped and on duty 
below. He proved to be an excellent, trusty man, 
and as soon as a vacancy occurred he was rated as a 
quartermaster, a position in which he served for 
months, very much to the satisfaction of the officers, 
and became a general favorite. His family, or the 
females of it, were in Pemiscot county when he en¬ 
listed, from whence he and his older sons and a son- 
in-law had been driven by the rebels. During the 
several months that he was on board the Huntress he 
told me several incidents of his life, many of which I 
verified by inquiries of people I met on shore; and 
although many accounts of the sufferings of loyal cit¬ 
izens have been published heretofore, I think a brief 
synopsis of the story of this man may prove interest¬ 
ing. Martin, as I shall call him (that being one of 
his names although not his last one), at the opening 
of the rebellion, was a farmer near the line of Ken¬ 
tucky in northwestern Tennessee. He was a man of 
about forty-four years of age, not quite exempt from 
service in the militia. During the time of the seces¬ 
sion agitation in 1861, he was out drilling in a regi¬ 
ment under command of Col. Bradford, a lawyer of 
Union City, who was afterwards assassinated while a 
prisoner, after surrendering to Forrest at Fort Pillow. 


5* 


REMINISCENCES 


Some of the secessionists brought out a rebel flag for 
the regiment and tendered it to the colonel, but he 
refused to receive it, telling the persons that the stars 
and stripes were good enough for his regiment. Mar¬ 
tin, with many others of the men stood with the 
colonel and refused to be driven into the rebel army, 
but the husband of one of his daughters went, with 
several of the neighbors. Soon a system of persecu¬ 
tions and petty annoyances were commenced against 
Martin and his family, and among other things the 
parents of his son-in-law, who had gone into the rebel 
army, managed to get possession of the infant child 
of said son-in-law and kept it in concealment away 
from its mother for months, carrying it over into Mis¬ 
souri, where it was finally found in an emaciated con¬ 
dition, showing evidence of brutal treatment, so that 
it died in a short time. The annoyances and perse¬ 
cutions of the family were kept up, increasing in 
malignity and being carried to such lengths that at 
last they concluded the only safety for them was to 
leave their farm and go among strangers. So they 
escaped, concealing their movements from their neigh¬ 
bors, and took refuge in Pemiscot county, Missouri. 
Here they remained for a year, but the rebels attempted 
again to conscript the men into the rebel army, and 
at last Martin and two of his sons and a son-in-law 
made their way to New Madrid. The two sons went 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


57 


into the union army where one of them lost his life, 
while Martin himself endeavored to make a living by 
working about the town, until he finally found a refuge 
on board the Huntress. His family was among those 
taken off at Carruthersville, as mentioned above. 

We shipped many other refugees during the time 
the Huntress cruised about New Madrid, the most of 
whom told stories of hardships and wrongs suffered at 
the hands of their rebel neighbors, but I did not have 
opportunities to verify them as I did those told by 
Martin. 

In April, 1865, Gen. Osband came to Randolph 
and Fulton, Tennessee (Fulton being on the north 
side of the mouth of the Big Hatchie river and Ran¬ 
dolph on the south), with two transports loaded with 
troops to scour the country on each side of the Big 
Hatchie river and clear it of the guerrillas who had 
been infesting it for months. There had been a great 
many complaints of outrages by guerrillas and robber 
bands in that section of country, and the party which 
went out from Randolph succeeded in capturing one 
man against whom they found evidence of a very 
strong character. This fellow, known about the 
country as Mat Luxton, with some witnesses, was 
brought in to Randolph by the party. Gen. Osband 
himself accompanied the party from Fulton, and his 
transport lay there under the protection of the 


58 


.REMINISCENCES 


Huntress during his absence, another gunboat being 
at Randolph to guard the transport there. When 
Gen. Osband went down to Randolph, on his return, 
he found the party in waiting for him, with the pris¬ 
oner and witnesses. Gen. Osband immediately or¬ 
dered a court martial, which assembled in the cabin 
of his transport, and in about half an hour after his 
arrival the court martial had been ordered, assembled, 
tried the prisoner, found him guilty, sentenced him to 
be hung, and before the full hour had expired, he was 
hanging to the limb of a tree, where his body re¬ 
mained from Saturday evening until Sunday in the 
night. The Huntress passed down Sunday afternoon 
and I saw the body still hanging there, obtaining the 
particulars, as I have given them above, from the offi¬ 
cers of the gunboat who had witnessed the whole 
affair. Gen. Osband left orders that the body was not 
to be taken down except by his orders, and on his 
arrival at Memphis he gave permission to the step¬ 
father of the dead man to remove him for burial; and 
on the packet that left Memphis Sunday night a party 
came up with a coffin, taking the body to Nashville, 
as I was informed. Complaints had been frequently 
made during the war that the president was too lenient 
in pardoning rebels, but Gen. Osband, in this case, 
made sure that he was not given an opportunity. 

In the unsettled condition of the thinly populated 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


59 


country, on the west side of the Mississippi, it was 
very difficult to get to the rights of all reports made 
to us. In July and August, 1864, I w'as occasionally 
called upon to assist the division commander, Capt. 
Mitchell, in his correspondence. The captain of the 
New Era, stationed below, was frequently getting 
prisoners charged with various offenses, whose cases 
he would report to Capt. Mitchell, who would again 
report them to Admiral Porter. One case which had 
rather a singular ending, I well remember. Several 
reports w r ere received and forwarded, regarding a cer¬ 
tain prisoner, and at last the admiral sent orders to 
have the said prisoner delivered up to the people on 
shore near Osceola, with orders for the people afore¬ 
said to shoot or hang him, as might suit their conveni¬ 
ence. These orders I copied and forwarded as di¬ 
rected, and the whole matter passed from my mind 
until the following May, when the rebellion having 
ended, all the people ashore who desired to come 
down to a peace footing were hastening on board the 
gunboat to take the oath of allegiance. One day a 
party of citizens came on board at Osceola, desiring 
to take the oath. Taking some blanks I filled in the 
names as requested, until one, given by a tall, lank 
looking man, struck me as somewhat familiar. Keep¬ 
ing his until the last, after the others had left the 
cabin, I engaged him in conversation, and finally 


6 o 


REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


asked him if he had ever been a prisoner on board 
the New Era. He very frankly acknowledged that he 
was the man, and said that he was put on shore as 
ordered, but the people could not believe that he de¬ 
served death, and so he was allowed to live and mend 
his ways. Whether his trade, blacksmithing, had any¬ 
thing to do with his reprieve, I did not learn, but I 
could not but remember the story of the blacksmith 
in Scotland who was sentenced to be hung, whose re¬ 
prieve was asked for on account of his being the only 
one in a large section thereabout, the people offering 
to hang a poor weaver in his place. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Trade Regulations—Sm uggling — Incidents. 



C^EOPLE at the north can have but a 
faint idea of the inconveniences suf¬ 
fered by those who resided in the re¬ 
bellious states for want of trade facili¬ 
ties. In the first place the system 
of slavery caused business before the 
rebellion, to center in a few seaports and places where 
cotton, tobacco and sugar, the great staples, could be 
forwarded to market. The planters purchased all the 
supplies needed for their families and slaves in New 
Orleans, Memphis, Vicksburg, St. Louis, Natchez, 
etc., and there was little or no neaessityfor village and 
cross-road stores so numerous and well filled as we 
have at the north. Village and country stores, so 
necessary for a free population, were discouraged by 
slave-holders, on several accounts, one of the principal 





62 


REMINISCENCES 


of which was the chance offered the slaves to dicker 
articles from the plantation. There were some small 
planters of course who needed such conveniences for 
trade as we have enumerated, but they had to arrange 
with some rich friend and neighbor to send their pro¬ 
duce to market and purchase supplies. The great 
staples of cotton, tobacco and sugar, above named, 
were cultivated almost exclusively in the southern 
states, the corn, pork and flour for feeding the inhabi¬ 
tants being obtained almost entirely from the north. 
It was thought more profitable to devote the unedu¬ 
cated labor of the slaves to the smallest variety of 
crops rather than diversify it, as can be done with free 
labor. It will be remembered that in the winter of 
1860-1, while state after state at the south was “seced¬ 
ing,” an alarm was given that the people of some of 
the seceding states were suffering for food, and large 
quantities of corn and pork were allowed to be shipped 
from Cincinnatti and Chicago, nominally to keep the 
people from starving, but as I now think to lay up a 
stock of food for the armies then being recruited. In 
1861 the south began to raise crops of corn and some 
other grains, and in the course of two or three years 
managed to supply itself with the staple articles of 
“hog and hominy,” prime necessaries in every southern 
family. Tea, sugar, coffee, and the other articles 
found on every northern table, also considered neces- 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


63 


sary at the south, were very difficult to obtain, and in 
time became very scarce. The stocks of dry goods, 
especially those most used, and such things as pins, 
needles, thread, etc., were soon exhausted. Many 
planters had large stocks of cotton and tobacco, worth 
thousands of dollars, but they were forced to wear old 
ragged clothes and live on corn bread and bacon—the 
latter very scantily salted—for salt was one of the 
scarcest of articles. All kinds of expedients were re¬ 
sorted to to obtain salt; a barrel of which, costing 
only two or three dollars in Cairo or St. Louis, would 
bring ten dollars at New Madrid; and across the river 
in Kentucky, it was cheap at fifteen dollars. The 
most stringent regulations were adopted to prevent 
salt being sold into hands that would allow it to pass 
into the interior, where it could be used to cure meats 
for the rebel armies. In the fall of 1864, after much 
negotiation among army department commanders, and 
by the consent of the commander of the Mississippi 
squadron, about fifty barrels of salt were allowed to 
be landed at Hickman, Kentucky, for the supply of 
some planters who assumed to be as near loyal as they 
could be and live there. In a short time we ascer¬ 
tained that several barrels of that salt had been taken 
a few miles back into the country and sold into rebel 
hands for fifty dollars per barrel in gold. Capt. Mit¬ 
chell, the district commander, sent a guard of sailors 


6 4 


REMINISCENCES 


on shore from the Huntress, and took the nominally 
loyal man who had connived at this transfer, and he 
was kept on board a close prisoner until we left the 
station, when he was transferred to the Sybil, our suc¬ 
cessor on that beat. 

Wherever the government established a military post 
and garrison, traders would crowd in and locate them¬ 
selves. But trade was by no means free. In the first 
place, before a man could get permission to do busi¬ 
ness, he was compelled to show that he was not a 
rebel and obtain a license from the commander of the 
department; then, when he went to St. Louis or Cairo 
to lay in a stock of goods, he must submit his bills of 
purchases to the provost marshal, who examined them 
and endorsed a permit to ship. Every boat carrying 
freight and passengers had a government agent on 
board, whose duty it was to see that nothing was 
landed at any wood-yard or plantation landing, not 
specially permitted by the provost marshal. All arti¬ 
cles not thus permitted were liable to seizure and re¬ 
turn to the place from whence shipped. A merchant 
having received his goods at New Madrid, could not 
sell them except according to regulation. A citizen 
residing inside the lines of the post could purchase 
articles less than one dollar in value without obstruc¬ 
tion ; but no article or single purchase of various ar¬ 
ticles costing over one dollar could be made by a cit- 


OK GUNBOAT LIFE. 


65 

izen, nor purchase of any amount by a person outside 
the line of pickets, without a permit for the same be¬ 
ing obtained of the post provost marshal; and when 
the person passed the pickets, the bundle of goods 
and bill and permit were duly examined and com¬ 
pared. 

During the summer of 1864, while the Huntress 
was at New Madrid and vicinity, a ferry was licensed 
across to Madrid Bend, in Kentucky. Every day the 
ferrymen, who lived in “ The Bend,” brought over a 
load of people to trade at New Madrid. They were 
landed on the Huntress, and then went ashore to make 
their purchases. After their goods were purchased 
and permitted by the provost marshal, an examination 
was always made of the parcels by the officer of the 
deck, before the ferry boat was allowed to return. 
Most of those who came over to trade were women, 
some of whom professed to have rode on horseback 
from twenty to forty miles, in order to do their trad¬ 
ing. Coffee, sugar, shoes and hoop skirts, were gen¬ 
erally found on each bill. Many expedients were re¬ 
sorted to by the ladies to obtain boots for their male 
friends, but they were seldom allowed to pass, on ac¬ 
count of the danger of their going to rebel soldiers. 
Sometimes a man would come over with a dilapidated 
pair of shoes, and if well vouched for, might obtain a 
pair of boots, but no one could get two pair on any 
9 


66 


REMINISCENCES 


consideration. Once a man tried this plan: He pur¬ 
chased a pair of boots and had his bill for the same 
permitted, then putting them on he walked about town 
awhile, and went a second time to the store, showed 
his permit to a different clerk and purchased another 
pair. These he carried away under his arm, but as he 
passed the guard-house he was challenged, and fearing 
punishment, he threw his second pair away and run. 
At one time a man living a .few miles up the river 
from New Madrid succeeded in procuring five barrels- 
of salt, with a view of smuggling a part of it into 
Tennessee, opposite Island No. io. He went to the 
provost marshal and gave in written requests from 
several of his neighbors for one barrel each. After 
he had obtained the salt his plan was discovered, and 
then the Huntress was sent up to take it away. A 
portion of it which he had stored for smuggling pur¬ 
poses was taken, while that distributed among the 
families was left. 

In August, 1864, while lying at New Madrid, a 
Memphis packet came along and asked convoy from 
the Huntress to wood-yards in the bend. We accom¬ 
panied her to three and after she had purchased all 
she had room for, the captain announced that she 
would not have to stop for wood again before reaching 
Memphis. This was said before all the wood was on 
board. The passengers were called to dinner while 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


67 


the wood was being loaded, and after dinner the cap¬ 
tain of the Huntress saw two large packing trunks 
and two valises on the bank, and made inquiry as to 
their owner or owners, there being something sus¬ 
picious in their appearance. All that could be ascer¬ 
tained was that they were taken ashore by the porter 
of the packet, but he could not identify the men or¬ 
dering him to take them. The trunks were examined, 
and were found to be filled with shoes, and the valises 
contained two pairs of Colt’s revolvers, army size, 
with over 100,000 gun caps. The articles were all 
seized, and being contraband, the boat might have 
also been seized, but believing the officers wholly in¬ 
nocent of complicity in the attempt to smuggle arms 
and caps into rebel hands, a bond was taken from the 
officers and the packet allowed to go, the porter being 
detained a prisoner in irons and under guard, to see if 
he could not be made to remember who were the par¬ 
ties owning the articles seized The porter could not 
or would not tell, but we afterwards ascertained that 
two young men among the passengers, owners of the 
goods, jumped overboard from the packet and swam 
ashore some time during the night. 

In the winter following, a quantity of butter and 
lard in tubs which was being landed under a special 
permit at Hickman, as the property of a lady passen¬ 
ger on one of the packets, was seized, and on exami- 


68 


REMINISCENCES 


nation a quantity of quinine and powder in kegs and 
other contraband articles were found concealed there¬ 
in. It was ascertained on farther investigation that a 
gang was engaged in the business who had managed 
to smuggle ashore quite a quantity of articles for the 
rebels, at various landings, before their plans were dis¬ 
covered. 

In the latter part of the year 1864 and the begin¬ 
ning of 1865, there was a great pressure upon the 
government to allow the crop of cotton just gathered 
to be got out for market. Cotton was worth from 
sixty cents to one dollar per pound, and mills were 
stopping at the north for want of it. Regulations 
were adopted to facilitate the marketing of cotton, and 
owners shipping were allowed to purchase one-half the 
value of their cotton in family supplies. Any person de¬ 
siring to ship cotton was required to send to the gov¬ 
ernment agent at Memphis and obtain a written permit 
to ship a certain number of bales. Armed with this per¬ 
mit he would then call upon a gunboat to guard its 
shipment, for no packet could take it except the gun¬ 
boat was at hand for convoy and to endorse the per¬ 
mit. With a permit for ten bales he could ship any 
less number, but he could not make a larger shipment, 
and if he had but a single bale ready his permit could 
not be used again. The endorsement by the captain 
of a gunboat that it had been once used destroyed its 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


69 


future value. Having landed his cotton in Memphis, 
Cairo or St. Louis, he was required to pay one-quarter 
of its value as a special tax (if raised in any of the 
states in rebellion), and then could purchase his sup¬ 
plies, which must be landed at the same place from 
which his cotton had been taken, that landing also being 
certified and protected by a gunboat. Afterwards a 
few trading boats were licensed to carry supplies, not 
contraband of war, and exchange them with planters 
for cotton and tobacco. They could only <Jo busi¬ 
ness however under convoy of a gunboat. The com¬ 
petition between the regular packets and special trad¬ 
ing boats was sometimes very sharp. 

Captain Mitchell, who commanded the district next 
south of Memphis, and extending up White river, in 
March 1865, at one time received from Acting Rear 
Admiral Lee two letters preferring charges against 
him. One was from the captain of a packet who ac¬ 
cused him of favoring the special trading boats to the 
damage and neglect of the regular packets ; and the 
other was from the owner of a trading boat, who 
charged him with going off with packets and leaving 
him on expense without protection for trading. The 
admiral left him to consider the dilemma without at¬ 
tempting to direct him in the premises. 

In the latter part of February 1865, the Huntress 
being at Memphis for a supply of coal, an arrangement 


70 REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 

was made by a packet to take the gunboat in tow and 
visit several landings on-our beat to ship cotton and 
land supplies. We thus accompanied her twenty-four 
hours, obtaining considerable cotton, and landing sup¬ 
plies purchased with cotton previously shipped. An¬ 
other time, being at Hale’s Point, a packet landed to 
take on some cotton, having a passenger on board 
with supplies permitted to be landed at Ashport, a few 
miles below. He begged the captain of the Huntress 
to allow them to be landed there rather than to be 
obliged to take them to St. Louis and return, paying 
freight each way, Ashport being on the same side of. 
the river, the desired permit was given. When the 
packet left, the gunboat accompanied her to a wood 
yard a few miles up the river. The next day we 
landed at Hale’s Point again, and learned that the 
Huntress had hardly passed out of sight around" a 
bend in the river before a gang of guerilla thieves of 
the class noticed in a previous chapter, came in and 
with loaded guns, took their pick of the goods just 
landed, ending with the coat of the owner, in one 
pocket of which was his pocketbook with the balance 
of cash received for his cotton. They left the bale- 
rope and bagging he had brought to pack the balance 
of his crop, but other articles were taken very freely. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Trading Incidents Continued—Rebel Prisoners — Ref¬ 
ugees — Closing up. 


HAVE spoken in a previous chapter of 
the duty gunboats were called upon to 
perform in preventing all crossing from 
one side of the river to the other. All 
skiffs, dugouts, etc., were destroyed 
wherever found, except in a very few 
cases where special permits were given. Still scarcely 
a day passed when cruising a short distance from New 
Madrid, that we did not break up one or more boats. 
In rounding a sharp bend in the river we quite fre¬ 
quently came upon a man crossing or attempting to 
cross in some kind of a boat. . In the winter, when 
the business of shipping cotton became quite brisk, it 
was very common for a person receiving supplies to 
endeavor to put a portion across the river in contra¬ 
vention of the regulations. 






72 


REMINISCENCES 


The army quartermaster and commissaries required 
large quantities of corn, potatoes and other produce 
for the men and animals in the army at Memphis, and 
permits were gladly given to ship such articles from 
any plantation along the river bank, consigned to the 
quartermaster. In August 1864, we had word that 
there was a large quantity of corn in sacks waiting 
shipment on the Tennessee side, against Island^io. 
Taking a detachment of soldiers from the garrison at 
New Madrid, we ran up there to hail in a packet and 
ship the corn. While waiting, information was re¬ 
ceived that there was a protracted meeting in progress 
a mile or two from the storehouse, at which we might 
find a few rebel soldiers home on furlough. The offi¬ 
cer in command of the soldiers on board requested 
permission to go to the meeting. Permission being 
given, in the course of the afternoon he returned 
bringing quite a number of the congregation, includ¬ 
ing one or two ministers (Campbellite). It appeared 
that our men were discovered before they got quite to 
the “hall,” where the meetings were held, by one of 
the rebel soldiers, who commenced firing on the de¬ 
tachment as he ran. He was joined by the other 
rebel soldiers, and they all escaped together, after a 
lively little skirmish in which nobody was hurt. After 
quite a long talk with the congregation thus brought 
to us they were set at liberty with a caution against 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


73 


entertaining rebel soldiers. That night, while lying at 
the bank, there was a terrible storm which blew down 
the storehouse and nearly wrecked the Huntress. 
Our sentries on shore were also fired upon by guerril¬ 
las, but fortunately all escaped unharmed, and the 
next day a boat came along to take the corn. 

In February 1865 we received information that 
some parties were engaged in smuggling supplies from 
the vicinity of Cottonwood Point, Missouri, into Ten¬ 
nessee, and orders were given to look into the matter. 
Accordingly, running in on the Tennessee side a short 
distance below the place where it was charged the 
smuggled goods had been landed, a party of men was 
sent on shore in charge of two of the watch officers, 
with orders to go up and examine the place. The 
officer in command had served in the army previous to 
coming into the navy, and was well qualified for his 
duty. He led his party up through the woods and 
had pickets posted all about the house before his pres¬ 
ence was suspected. Having made all his dispositions 
he started through the clearing for the house. Before 
he reached it the man who had been smuggling saw 
him and started out to escape. He passed near one 
of the pickets, who ordered him to halt, and on his 
refusal, shot him through the body. Entering the 
house the officer found a rebel lieutenant from Arkan¬ 
sas with three soldiers of his company, going home on 

10 


74 


REMINISCENCES 


a furlough, together with several citizens from the sur¬ 
rounding country. The man who was shot while try¬ 
ing to escape, being supposed to be mortally wounded, 
was left to be cared for by the family, while the rebel 
soldiers and citizens were brought down to the Hun¬ 
tress as prisoners. The soldiers were taken up to 
New Madrid and turned over to the provost marshal 
there, who sent them north; and the citizens, after 
being detained a few days, were allowed to go upon 
signing a written parole and oath of allegiance.. Dur¬ 
ing the time that the rebel soldiers were with us, one 
of them exhibited to me a “ Confederate States Al¬ 
manac for the year 1865, the fourth year of the Inde¬ 
pendence of the Confederate States.” It was pub¬ 
lished in Mobile, and was a far-off imitation of the 
Tribune and other almanacs of its class at the north, 
I very gladly purchased it and sent it home as an in¬ 
teresting reminiscence of the rebellion. It contains 
statistics of the confederate states, accounts of the 
victories won by their armies, brief statements of laws 
passed by their congress, etc. The compiler had a 
singular habit of claiming victories for many affairs 
where the histories generally give the advantage to the 
union forces. 

Stopping one day in the winter of 1865 to guard 
the landing of some supplies, a gentleman came on 
board and begged the captain for a permit to have 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


75 


some supplies landed in the absence of a gunboat. 
He said his family was suffering for the want of some 
of them and they had already passed his place three 
times, the packet captain refusing to land without a 
permit. He said he had to pay freight each time they 
passed. An order was written to the government 
agent on the packet to land the goods, and we heard 
no more of him. 

The rebels levied a tax on articles taken out of their 
lines whenever they had an opportunity. At first they 
levied the tax in kind, but they found some difficulty 
in realizing on cotton thus taken for taxes. In the 
spring of 1865 a gentleman came on board the Hun¬ 
tress, then at Fulton, Tennessee, and gave informa¬ 
tion that several bales of cotton taken by the rebel 
government for taxes, were stored in a shed, a few 
miles below on the opposite side of the river, in Ar¬ 
kansas. We ran down there and took the cotton, 
carrying it to Memphis, where it was delivered to the 
government agent. 

In April, after the news had been received of the 
capture of Richmond, while cruising above Osceola, 
the quartermaster on watch reported a man making 
signals from the shore, and as we crossed over we saw 
a few bales of cotton on the levee. The owner asked 
to have a packet then in sight hailed in to take his 
cotton. While standing off to hail the packet, three 


76 


REMINISCENCES 


men in soldier overcoats were seen to steal out from 
the rear of a house a few rods from where the cotton 
laid, and make towards a swamp. Orders were given 
by the captain of the Huntress to have the guns 
manned on the port side, and the man on shore was 
told to call on the fugitives to halt. They paid no 
attention to the call but the three men mounted two 
horses that had been hitched behind a shed and hur¬ 
ried off. A few shells were fired at them, over the 
house, very much, as they claimed, to the alarm of 
the inmates, but the only effect on the fugitives was 
to make them hurry along. When the packet landed 
we obtained a paper from her giving information of 
the surrender of Lee. The owner of the plantation, 
with whom we were well acquainted, also obtained a 
paper, and when he read the news pronounced it a 
confederate victory, saying that “Lee had been made 
too much of by the confederate government. That 
he was a weak man not equal to the position.” “Now,” 
said he, “the confederates can go on to fight with a 
good heart for five years longer if necessary.” This 
planter was apparently a well informed man on gen¬ 
eral subjects, had visited Saratoga in 1827, and lost 
his only two sons fighting under Beauregard at Shiloh, 
but he and his daughters who remained at home, were 
arrant rebels, and took every opportunity to speak 
against the union. The cotton that we landed to ship. 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


77 


belonged to a small planter in the vicinity, who told 
us that the three men we saw hurrying away were 
rebel officers who had been endeavoring to collect the 
export tax on his cotton. On his return from Mem¬ 
phis he procured some confederate money to pay the 
tax, but the rebel revenue collectors did not call for 
it, and so he generously presented a portion of it to 
the officers of the Huntress. One of the rebel offi¬ 
cers who escaped us was a son-in-law of the owner of 
the plantation. He was a member of the* naval 
academy at Annapolis at the breaking out of the re¬ 
bellion, and deserted and went to his home in Mis¬ 
souri. In a few weeks after the escapade above men¬ 
tioned he came to us at Osceola with a flag of truce 
and surrendered himself for parole. After his parole 
was signed we had a hearty laugh together over the 
ride above mentioned. 

I have spoken in a previous chapter of the trading 
boats which bartered supplies for cotton. They had 
some very narrow escapes. One which went up the 
Forked Deer river into Tennessee had an officer shot 
and was taken possession of two or three times by 
guerrilla bands, but the crew managed to ransom 
themselves. One which came down to us had been 
up the Tennessee or Cumberland river the previous 
year, when Hood went to Nashville. It had been 
fired upon by a rebel battery which sent two shells 


78 


REMINISCENCES 


through the pilot house, smashing the wheel, but the 
pilot fortunately escaped. The boat bore the marks 
of the hard usage it had received. A boat licensed 
to trade with the fleet met with an exciting adventure 
near Nashville when Hood came up there. She was 
well fitted up, and the owner had his wife and mother 
on board and a chambermaid to wait on them. A 
rebel battery was planted on a bluff, and brought to 
bear on this and several other boats as they passed 
around a bend in the river. A ball from the battery 
came in a short distance aft the smoke stack, with a 
downward aim, went through the floor of the cabin, 
where it came in contact with an iron pipe which 
caused it to glance upward and then it passed under a 
table between the wife and mother of the owner of 
the boat, cutting off the head of the chambermaid 
who was standing a short distance from them, waiting 
on the table. I was on board this boat a few weeks 
afterwards and saw the marks made by the ball. 

The union refugees, white and black, were calling 
on us for assistance in one way or another almost 
ever day, even after the rebellion had collapsed. 
Sometimes in cruising we would be hailed by men 
from a swamp, where they claimed to have been 
driven by rebel guerrillas or conscripting officers, who 
would ask to be taken on board and sent to Cairo. 
At one time in August 1864 we were hailed near mid- 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


79 


night, from a swamp above Island io, in Missouri, 
and took on board two men and two women and 
children. The women hailed us, and then called the 
men from their hiding places. All these fugitives 
claimed to be unionists, but they seemed in general 
to have very littlef understanding about the matters in 
controversy, and probably wanted to get out of the 
way of the fighting. Occasionally the men came to 
us to ship, but in several cases they deserted in a few 
weeks or months. Most of them were quite ignorant, 
unable to read or write. We shipped several negroes 
who interested themselves in learning to read and 
write as soon as they were messed on deck, but hardly 
one of the white refugees expressed any desire to learn. 

In April 1865 while lying near the head of Island 
No. 34, which is below Fort Pillow, we saw two dug- 
outs coming down, and hailed them to come to us, 
but the current was very swift and they were unable 
to get out of it to come alongside. We could see 
that each dugout contained a negro man and family. 
They managed to get ashore on the island below, and 
then the two men got into one dugout and came up 
to us. They were truly forlorn looking objects. They 
said they came from a small town a few miles back 
from the river above, and were going to Memphis. 
They gave as an excuse for leaving their home, that 
white men were killing negroes about there, and they 


8 o 


REMINISCENCES 


had run for their lives. In their own language. 
“They ’uns are mad at we ’uns cause you ’uns have 
whipped ’em ; we ’uns haint dun nothin.” They were 
furnished with rations and allowed to proceed down 
the river. The war was so nearly closed that the 
boats were allowed to go unobstructed. 

In September 1864, while the rebel Gen. Price was 
making his raid into Missouri to try to make a diver¬ 
sion in favor of Hood, who was being hard pressed in 
Atlanta by Sherman, all the passenger boats on the 
Mississippi were taken up by the government to trans¬ 
port troops, and for several days no boats passed up 
nor down. During that time great anxiety was felt as 
to the whereabouts of Gen. Mower who was marching 
his division through Arkansas and Missouri to strike 
Price in the rear. Gen. Mower had cut loose from 
his base at the south, and Gen. Rosekrans, in com¬ 
mand at St. Louis, sent orders for the post command¬ 
ant at New Madrid to send out a scout in search of 
Gen. Mower. This scout left New Madrid on a Sun¬ 
day, and much to our surprise, about midnight on 
Monday he returned with the desired information, 
having traveled, as he claimed, over one hundred miles. 
It had been the intention of Capt. Mitchell of the 
Huntress to proceed to Memphis on Tuesday morn¬ 
ing but when the scout returned orders were at once 
given to hoist anchor and proceed up the river with 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


8l 


all speed. Arrived at Columbus, a faster gunboat, the 
Sybil, Lieutenant Commander H. H. Gorringe, was 
lying there, and so Capt. Mitchell hurriedly wrote his 
dispatch and ordered me to go on board the other boat 
and carry the dispatch to Acting Admiral Lee. It 
appeared that the commandant of the post at Colum¬ 
bus had sent for a gunboat to assist him in defending 
that place, the reported northward march of Hood 
causing an alarm in all the garrisoned places on the 
river. The Huntress was thus detained for some 
weeks at and about Columbus, and a second gunboat 
was sent to us named the Siren, which lay with us be¬ 
fore Columbus for some days. 

An amusing incident occurred while the two gun¬ 
boats lay at Columbus which I will briefly relate to 
show what small grounds will create an alarm. There 
is a system of signals in use, consisting of several flags 
of different colored bunting, by which all men-of-war 
can communicate with each other. Each ship has 
its number. The Siren, being commanded by an offi¬ 
cer of a lower grade than Capt. Mitchell, was sent out 
in the river to lay at anchor while the Huntress laid 
at the bank of the river. One day to practice the 
signal officers, Capt. Mitchell signalled to know how 
much coal there was on board the Siren. It took 
some little time to ask and answer this question, and 
before the signaling was completed quite an anxious 


82 


REMINISCENCES 


crowd had gathered on shore to know whether we had 
any great or alarming news. 

One of the last duties the Huntress was called on 
to perform before going up to Mound City station’to 
be put out of commission, was to guard the mouth of 
the Big Hatchie below Fulton, Tennessee, to prevent 
the escape of Jeff Davis. After the surrender of Lee 
and Johnson with their armies, it will be remembered 
that the confederate president and a few followers 
disappeared for some days and no tidings could be 
obtained of them. The rebel armies were still in 
existence on the western side of the Mississippi, and 
it was thought that Mr. Davis and all of his govern¬ 
ment officers who were with him would endeavor to 
escape west and uphold their standard there. The 
Hatchie rises in the southern part of Tennessee and 
flows in a northwest course, emptying into the Mis¬ 
sissippi near Fulton. It was thought that Davis 
with his immediate followers might reach the Hatchie 
and make their way down in a boat and so get into 
the wilds and swamps of Arkansas. A very careful 
watch was kept by the crew of the Huntress for many 
days, until the news was received of the capture of 
Davis in Georgia. The country through which the 
Hatchie runs was filled with rebel emissaries and 
friends of the fallen cause, so that Mr. Davis w'ould 
have had no lack of assistance if he had come that 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 83 

way. Once over into Arkansas he could have easily 
escaped into 'Texas. 

I will close this chapter and my reminiscences with 
an incident which occurred to us while waiting upon 
a trading boat at Osceola in February 1865. The 
mess stewards were always on the look-out for eggs, 
milk, chickens, etc. One day the steerage steward 
went about half a mile away from the landing to a 
house, which he entered, hoping to get some milk. 
Two rebel officers were sitting there and made him 
prisoner. Two of the engineers of the boat with a 
man from the deck had followed the steward and 
they came up just as the steward was captured. One 
of the rebel officers stepped out on the piazza, with a 
pistol in each hand, and called to the three men to 
surrender. They had been careless in leaving the 
boat without arms, and one of the engineers gave up, 
while the other engineer and man made their escape, 
the prisoners were robbed, one of his watch, and the 
other of some small articles, and their captors started 
to march with them into the swamps. As soon as in¬ 
formation was received on board the Huntress nego¬ 
tiations were opened to release them, but we could 
only get them back as prisoners on parole, and they 
so remained for months thereafter. 

August 13, 1865, the war being over the several 
vessels of the squadron were put out of commission, 


8 4 


REMINISCENCES 


and after fourteen months’ service on the Mississippi 
river, extending from St. Louis on the north to Vicks¬ 
burg on the south, I came home. 

History has been defined by a distinguished writer 
as the relation of a few incidents of a personal nature 
connected with some place or country. I have in the 
foregoing reminiscences endeavored to relate such in¬ 
cidents in connection with my services on board a 
gunboat as would go to show what a state of war 
brings upon the people; to elucidate the character of 
the people of the section of country where I served, 
with some information regarding the country itself. 


OF GUNBOAT LIFE. 


85 


As a suitable ending to these Reminiscences I give 
the following little “Ode,” written by my friend, Mor¬ 
ris M. Berry, esq., who served a few months on the 
Huntress with me: 


ODE. 

TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 
Father of waters ! muddy theme 
Of song at any time, 

Just quit your digging in that bluff, 

And listen to my rhyme. 

You have the curve of beauty, Dad, 

And all its twists display, 

And sprawl along your crumbling banks, 
As though you’d lost your way. 

Your turbid waters, darkling, hide 
Their depths from mortal sight, 
Perhaps, concealing mysteries 
Too dreadful for the light. 

That fabled myth of olden time, 

Where souls were rowed to hell. 

Was scarce more murky than the waves 
That in thy current swell. 

And yet I’ve sometimes seen thee laugh, 
And mend thy lagging pace, 

When moonbeams falling, danced upon, 
And tickled thy old face. 




86 


REMINISCENCES OF GUNBOAT LI 


/ 



Perhaps, when zephyrs fan the air, 

And tint thy shores with green, 

Thy grisly visage will relax, 

And smile upon the scene. 

’Tis winter now, and nothing blooms 
But wizard mistletoe— 

No warblers sing—Your only birds 
The buzzard, gull and crow. 

No flowers are budding on your shores, 

No fragrance scents the air, 

No leaflet flutters in the breeze, 

Your cotton-trees are bare. 

Father of streams ! Grand-dad of muds ! 

Don’t wash yourself away, 

Then I may come in June again 
And sing another lay, 

But, if you like my rhyme, old Dad, 

And have a spark of grace, 

Go to the Gulf of Mexico 
And wash your dirty face. M. M. B 


U. S. S. Huntress , Miss. Squadron , February , 1865. 












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